Every serious photographer has asked themselves the question, “What makes a good photo”, more than a few times. I’m often amazed when I share a photo online, whether it’s here in this blog or another online community, when one image that I think is fantastic gets a tepid reaction, and another that I consider a “snapshot” goes over big.

Of course, like everything else, the answer to the question is subjective, because as with food, fashion, music and most everything else, tastes vary; because we’re all different, so are our likes and dislikes.

And yet, with photography, we often find images that are very appealing, and universally so. Case in point, the photos found in this video. While they were all created by different photographers at different times, in different parts of the world, they all have one thing in common: they evoke feeling. They speak to us, in some cases personally and privately, in others, loudly and without shame.

Spend a few minutes to view these images, and turn up the sound if you’d like – there’s music and a narrative. In fact, I recommend you focus on just the images – I found the captions, while informative, distracted me from the emotions of the photographs. Run through it a second time if you’d like to learn more about the photos by reading the captions.